Lucy is in her last year at school when her mysterious classmate, Daniel, tells her a strange story: that he loves her and has done so for hundreds of years through a myriad of different lives... Told in alternating first- and third-person narratives, this follows Daniel's story (told by him) from his first life in the 500s, and the tale of his present day relationship with Lucy.
I really wanted to love this book but found myself a bit disappointed. Although this is being sold as a book for adults, it frequently felt that it emotionally belongs in the teenage genre. There is more than a passing resemblance between Daniel and Edward Cullen (although, of course, their `affliction' is different) and Daniel's voice feels like a feminine, rather than masculine one or, more precisely, a romantically idealised male voice as imagined/fantasised by a female author.
This is the sort of book where people love through fate or destiny without having to get to know each other at all and it is, of course, `true love'. The plot feels a bit sparse to me and very fragmented: so there are lots of little sections, some only a couple of pages, where Daniel recounts his previous lives. The addition of an evil brother who completes the love triangle was a bit too much like a pantomime villain and the whole patterning too neat.
Brashares can write some beautiful prose but it's inconsistent and this book, overall, lacked atmosphere and real emotional power for me. Reading is always a very personal matter of taste and other reviewers here clearly loved this: I found this a bit thin and obvious but suspect my teenage niece will love it.
